Cross or Torture Stake?

[KingdomLeast]

Many have been plagued by the fruitless arguments of a well-known organization whose adherents make much of the question of what it was upon which Jesus was crucified (or "impaled"). One brother was accosted with the question at a fair booth: "Why do you have Jesus hanging on a pagan symbol?" His answer as classic: "Because it was pagans who killed him." Perhaps the matter is not worth the space for consideration. Yet, if any feel it is, there is both historical Scriptural support that Jesus was slain on a two-piece cross.

Strong's Concordance (as other lexicons) demonstrates that the Greek word is of no help in solving the question.

Archaeological findings of the period (see McClintock and Strong, Vol. 2, pp. 575-581) are strongly in favor of two piece crosses. One-piece crosses, when used, either had the victims tied to them, or the stake was run through the body. The descriptions of Jesus' death obviously do not meet these conditions. The term "impale" (used in a modern translation) is most unfortunate, as the term suggests running the pole through the person's body, not affixing the person to the stake. The Scriptural evidence, as usual, is the strongest available evidence. It is clear from John 20:25 that nails (plural) were used in Jesus' hands. (Also note prophetic references to plural nails, Psalm 22:16, and to piercing of hands and feet, Zechariah 12:10.) On a single upright the hands would have to be above the head and almost certainly upon each other fastened with a single nail. On a crosspiece, of course, plural nails are a necessity. Another evidence, a strong one, is suggested in Matthew 27:37 and John 19:19, 20.

A sign, large enough to be written clearly in three languages, was placed OVER HIS HEAD. Had Jesus been hanging with his arms over his head on a single-piece stake, the sign could not have been over his head, but over his hands. This problem disappears with a two-piece cross.

 

[tall73]

It is clear from John 20:25 that nails (plural) were used in Jesus' hands. (Also note prophetic references to plural nails, Psalm 22:16, and to piercing of hands and feet, Zechariah 12:10.) On a single upright the hands would have to be above the head and almost certainly upon each other fastened with a single nail. On a crosspiece, of course, plural nails are a necessity.

I had not encountered this particular dispute before. But wouldn't Thomas' desire to see his hands and feet, and side that were pierced suggest these were His physically visible injuries? I would think if a pole were driven through His body that would leave a bit of a mark as well to observe.

The whole notion seems strange to claim.

 

[notRusskiyMir]

The usual result of Roman crucifixion was death by asphyxiation - with or without the legs being broken. The victim, almost always beat up or scourged, would need his legs to push up in order to draw enough air in his lungs. While the Doubting Thomas recount is pretty convincing, in my unscientific testing, I can draw a deeper breath with both arms above my head than I can with my arms extended from my sides. So, if this is correct, a two piece cross would be the better method.

The Romans perfected crucifixion so that the body was positioned to be stressed to a horrific extent, while leaving just enough slack so that the torture and humiliation would make a good show to the public. I think that the crucifixion detail were specialists and were not involved with the scourging Jesus received. Likewise, I think the Roman scourger(s) were also specialists.

I'm pretty sure that the majority conclusion is that Jesus did not die of asphyxiation, but rather died from blood loss and trauma due to the scourging. Pilate's plan was to scourge Jesus and present him to the Temple authorities (the people) and that would satisfy them. Then, Jesus would be set free. But Jesus was obviously scourged more than normal as He died a few hours later on the cross. Jesus had his robe and other possessions at the cross, so Pilate's intent is consistent with this in that He would be set free after the scourging - the scourgers didn't rob Him. Which raises the question, why was Jesus beaten so severely? It couldn't have been a mistake if these were specialists.

As to a pagan symbol, I read that the cult of Mithras used a cross symbol. How many people know that? I am unaware that the cross was a pagan symbol otherwise. Given that a two piece cross was needed for the desired effect, and that Jesus was the Son of God, the cross became a Christian symbol to remind us of His sacrifice for us.

As to the motivation for this inquiry, for 2000 years the vast majority of Christians accept a two piece cross, yet wisdom was given to a few in our time that know better. I would like to see enthusiasm sometimes in seeking ways that the majority view is affirmed.

 

[Aaron112]

Strong's Concordance (as other lexicons) demonstrates that the Greek word is of no help in solving the question.

Why did Jesus Say YHVH hides the Truth from scholars ?

Also, why does Jesus Say the Scriptures are/were/ entrusted to the Jews, and salvation comes through the Jews ?

Not to mention the hidden (from public view) that Jesus hung crucified as a sacrifice for the sins of men, as written, on a tree. (most likely requires revelation from the Father and resources rare but available from Jewish Followers of Yeshua immersed in His Name.

 

[JSRG]

As to a pagan symbol, I read that the cult of Mithras used a cross symbol. How many people know that? I am unaware that the cross was a pagan symbol otherwise. Given that a two piece cross was needed for the desired effect, and that Jesus was the Son of God, the cross became a Christian symbol to remind us of His sacrifice for us.

I'm pretty sure that claims of the cult of Mithras using a cross symbol, at least in any kind of important religious sense, are made up. There's a lot of claims about pagan religions that people use to try to show some similarity to Christianity or Christian practice but have no actual evidence backing them up (or are very different when one examines them carefully), and this includes the cross.

When people try to point to some supposed pagan origin of the cross, the examples given seem to always fall into one of the following categories: (1) completely made up, (2) involve a symbol that doesn't really look much like a cross (e.g. 卍 which looks a lot difference from a Christian cross), or (3) doesn't seem to have any particular significance. Finding a random instance of two interlocking lines (which is one of the most basic of all shapes so of course you'd see people use it in various contexts) doesn't show any religious significance, any more than people using the letter t, letter x, or addition sign + are doing so in any religious sense.

 

[notRusskiyMir]

I'm pretty sure that claims of the cult of Mithras using a cross symbol, at least in any kind of important religious sense, are made up. There's a lot of claims about pagan religions that people use to try to show some similarity to Christianity or Christian practice but have no actual evidence backing them up (or are very different when one examines them carefully), and this includes the cross.

When people try to point to some supposed pagan origin of the cross, the examples given seem to always fall into one of the following categories: (1) completely made up, (2) involve a symbol that doesn't really look much like a cross (e.g. 卍 which looks a lot difference from a Christian cross), or (3) doesn't seem to have any particular significance. Finding a random instance of two interlocking lines (which is one of the most basic of all shapes so of course you'd see people use it in various contexts) doesn't show any religious significance, any more than people using the letter t, letter x, or addition sign + are doing so in any religious sense.

I do not think the cross was regarded as a pagan symbol, but I do think the Cult of Mithras used it. I think that is why Constantine put it on his soldiers shields at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge - his decisive victory. He gained favor with all factions of his troops, some of whom were Christians and others who were of Mithras.

 

[prodromos]

The cross was prefigured by Moses in Exodus 17. In the battle with Amalek, as long as Moses held his arms outstretched either side, then Israel prevailed in battle.

 

[Aaron112]

Two Versions of Constantine's Vision | The Bart Ehrman Blog

In this thread I am discussing the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Chrsitianity. I have already given the political and military background to his conversion, and said something about his religious affiliations prior to converting. Now I can begin to address what we know about the...

ehrmanblog.org

" 310 CE describes a vision that he had recently had of the god Apollo, who is often associated in ancient thought with the sun and considered, then, the Sun God."

This site apparently costs something to read what is hidden after a brief synopsis.

 

[The Liturgist]

As far as I am aware, only J/Ws believe in the “Torture stake” nonsense.

Two Versions of Constantine's Vision | The Bart Ehrman Blog

In this thread I am discussing the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Chrsitianity. I have already given the political and military background to his conversion, and said something about his religious affiliations prior to converting. Now I can begin to address what we know about the...

ehrmanblog.org

" 310 CE describes a vision that he had recently had of the god Apollo, who is often associated in ancient thought with the sun and considered, then, the Sun God."

This site apparently costs something to read what is hidden after a brief synopsis.

Bart Ehrman is an atheist who has made it his life’s work to discredit Christianity with bad scholarship.

The idea that his vision was of Apollo is absurd, because his mother embarked on a campaign to restore Jerusalem (she was born a Christian by the way), and he converted to Christianity, not to Apollo-worship.

Unfortunately his son Constantius was evangelized by the sinister Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had avoided sanction at the Council of Nicaea by not attending, and who had after the council worked to get Arius rehabilitated, with great success, so that when Constantius took the throne, Arianism replaced Christianity as the household religion of the Roman Empire, and a decades long persecution of Christian bishops, presbyters, deacons and laity, who refused to deny the Incarnation of Christ our True God, and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, began, which ended only with the death of Emperor Valens. It was St. Theodosius who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire when he smashed the altar of victory, so actually several countries beat Rome to the punch when it came to adopting Christianity as their official religion: first it was the city state of Edessa, around 301 AD, then it was the Kingdom of Armenia in 306 AD, then in 314 Constantine enacted the Edict of Milan which introduced tolerance of Christianity but did not make it a state religion - indeed Paganism remained popular among a certain strate of Roman society, particularly rural traditionalists and Patricians, hence the word Pagan, which means “country bumpkin”, but also an intellectual elite who associated themselves with Neo-Paganism, like Emperor Julian the Apostate, until St. Theodosius made it illegal around 390 AD, shortly before his death. It was Theodosius who caused the sacrificial cults of Greece, Rome, Egypt and the various lands under Roman rule to collapse. He also set in motion the division of the Eastern and Western empire, which was fortunate, because Roman control in the West had become unstable.

However, when Rome fell, the barbarians who pillaged it during the various times when Rome was sacked, except during the reign of Pope Leo X around 1520 when Rome was sacked by German soldiers due to not having been paid on time by either the Pope or the Kaiser, in what was essentially a mutiny - the previous sackings were done by Gothic people who had been converted to Arianism by Arian missionaries.

Many of the Visigoths later embraced Islam as Islam and Arianism are doctrinally similar insofar as they deny the deity of Christ, the Incarnation, and the Trinity, and these Muslim fanatics were partially responsible for the genocide of most North African Christians west of Egypt, in the region called the Maghreb (which consists of western Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morrocco, and Mauretania and the Western Sahara, as well as southerly bits of the Sahara down to Niger and Burkina Faso, for example, Timbuktu in Mali, which unfortunately has been damaged by Islamist fundamentalist barbarians in recent years, although not to the extent of the total obliteration of Palmyra and Dura-Europos in Syria.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Many have been plagued by the fruitless arguments of a well-known organization whose adherents make much of the question of what it was upon which Jesus was crucified (or "impaled"). One brother was accosted with the question at a fair booth: "Why do you have Jesus hanging on a pagan symbol?" His answer as classic: "Because it was pagans who killed him." Perhaps the matter is not worth the space for consideration. Yet, if any feel it is, there is both historical Scriptural support that Jesus was slain on a two-piece cross.

Strong's Concordance (as other lexicons) demonstrates that the Greek word is of no help in solving the question.

Archaeological findings of the period (see McClintock and Strong, Vol. 2, pp. 575-581) are strongly in favor of two piece crosses. One-piece crosses, when used, either had the victims tied to them, or the stake was run through the body. The descriptions of Jesus' death obviously do not meet these conditions. The term "impale" (used in a modern translation) is most unfortunate, as the term suggests running the pole through the person's body, not affixing the person to the stake. The Scriptural evidence, as usual, is the strongest available evidence. It is clear from John 20:25 that nails (plural) were used in Jesus' hands. (Also note prophetic references to plural nails, Psalm 22:16, and to piercing of hands and feet, Zechariah 12:10.) On a single upright the hands would have to be above the head and almost certainly upon each other fastened with a single nail. On a crosspiece, of course, plural nails are a necessity. Another evidence, a strong one, is suggested in Matthew 27:37 and John 19:19, 20.

A sign, large enough to be written clearly in three languages, was placed OVER HIS HEAD. Had Jesus been hanging with his arms over his head on a single-piece stake, the sign could not have been over his head, but over his hands. This problem disappears with a two-piece cross.

The preponderance of evidence is that the stauros which Jesus was crucified on had a cross-beam. To the point that it is simply undeniable. We have ancient writers telling us that stauros referred to something which was shaped like the Greek letter Tau. The ancient satirist Lucian of Samosata wrote a satirical drama about a fictional court setting between the Greek letters Sigma and Tau, in which Tau is accused of having the form of a stauros:

"Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up structures on which men are crucified. Stauros the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape — that shape which he gave to the gibbet named stauros after him by men."

The ancient Father of the Latin Church, Tertullian, likewise points out that the instrument of Christ's Passion was shaped like the letter Tau,

"Ipsa est enim littera Graecorum Tau, nostra autem T, species crucis, quam portendebat futuram in frontibus nostris apud veram et catholicam Hierusalem, in qua fratres Christi, filios scilicet dei, gloriam patri deo"

"For the very letter of the Greeks is Tau, and ours is T, the type of the cross, which was to be borne before us in the true and catholic Jerusalem, in which the brethren of Christ, that is, the children of God, glory to God the Father" (Against Marcion, Book III, Ch. 22)

Early Christians noted that in Ezekiel 9:4 which speaks of those who grieve over the abominations in Jerusalem are given a mark, a tav in Hebrew, which was interpreted to prefigure the mark of the cross by which Christians are marked as belonging to Christ (see again the same place above in Tertullian's Against Marcion, Book III, ch. 22).

The Epistle of Barnabas, even earlier, went so far as to see in the seemingly mundane mention of 318 men in Genesis 14:14 as hinting to Jesus and His cross, the first two lettes of Jesus' name in Greek (Iota and Eta having numerical values of 10 and 8 respectively, thus 18) and the letter Tau having the numerical value of 300--emphasizing that the cross on which Jesus died looked like the Greek letter Tau. While I don't recommend that kind of grasping at numbers in the Bible, the point is clear what ancient people understood stauros to mean, what sort of instrument was used by the Romans to execute people, and what Jesus was put to death on.

These are just some ancient mentions, both Christian and non-Christian, on this subject.

The torture-stake proponents have nothing but their own personal opinions to rely on. Because the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the traditional depiction of Jesus crucified on a T/t shaped cross.

There's also this: Alexamenos graffito - Wikipedia

Even when Pagans mocked Christians they got the cross shape correct. Because everyone back then knew what a crucifixion looked like.

-CryptoLutheran